Good Friday
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Friday, April 18, 2025If anyone has viewed the Passion of Christ where the last hours of Jesus are shot in excruciating detail, most would question why Good Friday is called, ‘Good Friday.’ At least that was my thought between wincing over the lashes and the obvious pain Jesus was experiencing. As a new Christian, the movie came highly recommended to learn about Good Friday and Easter, but I wondered, “Why is it called Good Friday when it’s the day Jesus, brutally died?”
Why Is it Called Good Friday?
For Christians, Good Friday is a crucial day of the year because it celebrates what we believe to be the most pivotal day in the history of the world. On Good Friday, Jesus willingly suffered and died by crucifixion as the ultimate sacrifice for our sins (1 John 1:10).
D.A. Carson wrote, "It was not nails that held Jesus to that wretched cross; it was his unqualified resolution, out of love for his Father, to do his Father’s will—and it was his love for sinners like me."
It is a good day because he traded places for you and for me. It is a good day because it was the day he conquered sin and death so that we will never be apart from God on this side of heaven or the other.
If you had asked his friends, family, and disciples on the day he died, they wouldn’t have said it was a good day when all hope seemed lost; evil and death seemed to have triumphed, but their responses would’ve been very different three days later because the forces of evil had been defeated, death had been destroyed, and from that point on, we all have a way to be free of sin and death.
Still, some have debated where the name of Good Friday originated.
Justin Holcomb wrote, “Some Christian traditions do take this approach: in German, for example, the day is called Karfreitag, or “Sorrowful Friday.” In English, in fact, the origin of the term “Good” is debated: some believe it developed from an older name, “God’s Friday.” Regardless of the origin, the name Good Friday is entirely appropriate because the suffering and death of Jesus, as terrible as it was, marked the dramatic culmination of God’s plan to save his people from their sin.”
It’s called Good Friday because, by Jesus’ death, he became the final, complete sacrifice for our sins. We couldn’t have erased our sins. Our hands would have been forever stained with every single sin for a lifetime. But Jesus broke the bonds of death and sin!
To God be the glory, great things he has done!
So loved he the world that he gave us his Son,
who yielded his life an atonement for sin,
and opened the life-gate that all may go in.
Praise the Lord! Praise the Lord,
Let the earth hear his voice!
Praise the Lord! Praise the Lord!
Let the people rejoice!
O come to the Father through Jesus the Son
and give him the glory, great things he has done!
From Crosswalk.com
